Tata R04: Carlsen, Anand and Caruana score

1/15/2013 – On Sunday all games were (mostly exciting) draws, today by contrast there were five decisive games. At the top Magnus Carlsen took Pentala Harikrishna to the cleaners in typical style; world number five Fabiano Caruana defeated Ivan Sokolov, and World Champion Vishy Anand, facing Levon Aronian with black, played what might surely go down as the game of the year. Full report with GM analysis.

75. Tata Steel Chess Tournament

January 2013

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This event is taking place from January 12-27. The venue is as usual the traditional
De Moriaan Center in the Dutch sea resort of Wijk aan Zee,. The tournament has
taken place since 1938 and was known as the Corus Chess Tournament. The Indian
company Tata Steel bought Corus (for US $7.6 billion) in 2006 and the chess
event way renamed accordingly. The tournament has three Grandmaster Groups,
which have 14 players and are held as full round robins (each competitor plays
against every other). The rate of play for all three groups is 100 minutes for
40 moves, then 50 minutes for 20 moves and finally 15 minutes for the rest of
the game, with a 30 seconds/move increment starting with the first move of the
game.

Round four report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Group A: Round 4 - Tuesday January 15

Loek van Wely - Erwin L'Ami

1-0

Wang Hao - Hou Yifan

1-0

Hikaru Nakamura - Sergey Karjakin

½-½

Anish Giri - Peter Leko

½-½

Fabiano Caruana - Ivan Sokolov

1-0

Levon Aronian - Vishy Anand

0-1

Magnus Carlsen - Pentala Harikrishna

1-0

What a round! The spectators must be very pleased, they saw everything they
could ask for today! Magnus played like he was the best player in the world,
Anand annihilated his opponent, Nakamura… well, let’s just look
at them one by one.

The only dull game today was between Giri and Leko. An unusual Nimzo met a
familiar treatment and the game went nowhere. But all the rest of the games,
oh my, what action!

First of all, van Wely chose the Trompowsky to perhaps surprise Erwin L’Ami
(above with his wife Alina), who reacted very aggressively. However his exchange
sacrifice started with 17… Rhg8?! was suspicious, to say the least (actually,
I’m giving the benefit of the doubt and assuming he sacrificed it instead
of blundering), and van Wely converted without too much trouble.

Wang Hao played a model game in a classical Nimzo line. His powerful moves
d5! and c4! back to back secured him a better structure and the advantage of
having a powerful bishop against a dubious knight. Hou Yifan tried very hard,
but the position was just not comfortable at all. After defending for a long
time she blundered in what was already a very difficult position, and Wang Hao
took the Chinese match up.

Caruana outplayed Sokolov in a Ruy Lopez. After building the strongest center
ever it was simply impossible for the Dutch GM to hold on to all sides of the
board, and after giving up two pawns the contest was over.

Nakamura-Karjakin was not the most exciting game over all, but the finale more
than made up for it. After winning a pawn early on, White was under immense
pressure from Black’s heavy pieces. This eventually led to a queen endgame
in which Nakamura had a bunch of pawns, but Karjakin had a powerful passed d-pawn.
Perhaps with not the most exact play Hikaru let his opponent advance the pawn
too much, and was forced to give a perpetual himself.

Carlsen proved why he is world #1 again by playing a pretty whatever opening
against Harikrishna. Shortly after the opening phase the Norwegian launched
a rapid kingside attack. He shed pawns like they weren’t worth anything,
and in exchange for them obtained a powerful passer on e6. His positional dominance
allowed him to pluck Harikrishna’s queenside pawns one by one, and with
the positional advantage of the e6 passed pawn and the material advantage the
game was quite over.

The highlight of the day, however, is Aronian-Anand. A game better experienced
by going through it yourself, as it is only 23 moves long and a complete demolition.
There is plenty of analysis given below!

Photos by Nadja Wittmann

Anand's postgame analysis of his win over Aronian

Anand: "This could easily be one of the best games I have played. To win
a game like this against Levon, who is my nightmare opponent, as you probably
know, is definitely wonderful. Funnily enough both my black wins against him
have been real classics. I don't win that often, but when I do it is at least
a good one." Watch the two video statements given immediately after the
end of the game.

Viswanathan Anand

Levon Aronian

Levon Aronian (see video statement below). "I think I ran into a theoretical
trap. I was not aware of Bc5, which is very strong. Vishy said he had prepared
it for somebody else. I should study openings better." Anand reminds us
of the similarity of this game to Rotlevy-Rubinstein: "It was the same
concept: bishop on b6, bishop on b7, and Rubinstein's version was even Rxc3
h3, but essentially the same idea: Qh4 and Qxh3 – all these ideas work."

The following annotation was sent to us from Wijk aan Zee by GM Efstratios
Grivas:

Commentary schedule

There is full broadcast of all games on the official site and on the Playchess
server, which will provide live audio commentary of the most interesting
games (free for Premium members) starting at 15:00h for each round, 14:00h for
the final round. Commentary begins at approx. 3 p.m. and lasts 2 to 2½
hours, with breaks in between. A round-up show is provided at 8 PM server time.
Commentary is available, by the following experts:

See also

1/27/2013 – In the final round the Chinese GM Wang Hao ruined all Vishy Anand's chances of gaining Silver by beating the World Champion. Levon Aronian drew, to take sole second place, while Sergey Karjakin defeated Loek van Wely to join Anand in 3/4 places. Magnus Carlsen drew his game with black against Anish Giri and ended a full 1½ points ahead of the field. Full round 13 report.Discuss

1/27/2013 – Who will win the 75th Tata Steel Tournament? Okay, we know Magnus Carlsen has already clinched the A Section, but the B and C sections are still hotly contested. The final round starts on Sunday, January 27, at 12:00 noon (i.e. an hour and a half earlier than usual). To make things especially interesting we recommend you update your Playchess client and try out our latest Guess-a-Move feature.Discuss

Discuss

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